This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works

What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation for the way things work? This is the question posed to some of the world's leading thinkers by John Brockman, founder and publisher of Edge.org, "the world's smartest website" (Guardian, London). Among some 150 theories and thoughts on everyday occurrences collected here, Jared Diamond looks at biological electricity, Nassim Nicholas Taleb considers "positive" stress, and Steven Pinker addresses the deep genetic roots of human conflict. Here too are Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition, Frank Wilczek on simplicity, Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism, Brian Eno on the limits of intuition, Richard Thaler on the power of commitment, V.S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness, Eric Kandel on the power of psychotherapy, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum," and Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism.

"Fun and inspirational ... this engaging collection can be read from cover to cover or browsed as interest dictates, but all inquisitive readers will enjoy it."—Library Journal